Category Archives: Corruption

Banking, Corporate Governance, Corruption, Economics, Political Decision, Real economy, Social values

Cameron’s Anti-Business ‘Snobbery’: Real or Synthetic?

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The Prime Minister used the word ‘snobbery’ to deride what he referred to as anti-business rhetoric. By which he was meaning the arguments that business ‘has no inherent moral worth’, that it ‘isn’t really to be trusted’, and that it had ‘no social concerns’ but was solely to do with ‘making money that pays the taxes’. He was addressing the charity, Business in the Community, attended by the Prince of Wales. ‘Snobbery’ seems a curious word to use. Maybe it is some left-over frisson from the landed gentry, even royalty, of old England, for whom the idea of making money, rather than inheriting it, may be thought somewhat beyond the pale. But surely the Prime Minister doesn’t take such ideas seriously!

So far as is known, Milton Friedman was never accused of snobbery. But it was he, more than anyone, who persuaded business that it should have no social concerns and not strive after moral worth, but focus exclusively on making as much money as possible for shareholders. He was less enthusiastic about paying taxes, but snobbery played no part in his argument. It purported to emanate from the cold logic of economic theory, if such a thing were possible.
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Bank Bonuses, Corruption, Economics, Political Decision

Looting and Rioting – Bob Diamond Again

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Over the past few days, the famine in East Africa, the US loss of its S&P triple A credit rating, the Murdoch disgrace, the Eurozone indebtedness and Greece’s odious debt, and even the World Championship Hen Races in Derbyshire, have all been driven from the front pages, at least in UK, by the looting and burning street riots. Consideration of their underlying causes and recommended solutions have dominated the media. Prime Minister Cameron, for example, expert in policing and broken societies, apparently wants to appoint a native from gun-toting America, to show British police how to do their job.

This blog’s intent is to flag up the impacts of theory on practice. The focus is mainly on the management and governance of real economy organisations, because they are what pays for our education, health and security, and they are where most of us work. The broad contention which has emerged from postings on this site, is that the theory which impacts on those organisations has had a profound, very widespread and more or less wholly negative effect. And that almost certainly includes some motivation for the looting and burning riots.
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Bank Bonuses, Corruption, Economics, Political Decision, Taxation

The Red Herring of Interesting Times

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These interesting times might take our eyes off the things that really matter. During a recent late night discussion on the BBC among the financial cognoscenti, one of the participants warned against getting drawn back into ‘the red herring of banker’s bonuses’. The real issues were the British government and police being in the pockets of the Murdochs, media plurality, the debt crises in Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, etc etc and the future of the Euro, not to mention the changing world roles of the US and China as well as the developing famine in East Africa. Bankers’ bonuses were surely small beer against such giant issues.

Keynes argued that reducing taxes on the poor enabled them to immediately increase their spending which would stimulate growth in the real economy, thus reducing debt and creating jobs. Reducing taxes on the rich did not have that immediate effect, but, the argument ran in Keynes’ day, it enabled them to increase investment in the real economy thus having a long term positive impact on growth. That was then.
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Corporate Governance, Corruption, Free Market Capitalism, Moral Hazard, Political Decision

The Long Term Impact of the Murdochs’ Disgrace

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It seems impossible to ignore the Murdoch saga: the seedy old martinet, his chosen heir apparent and the family sycophants and hangers on, shades of the Duvaliers’ era in Haiti, or a dozen or more banana republic tyrants. The Murdochs are clearly prepared to be as ruthless and dishonest as it takes in pursuit of their own self-interest. Their dishonesty, now being revealed daily, was confirmed early on, for example, by Harold Evans, much respected editor of the Times, when the Murdochs took over. Assurances of continued editorial independence were made as a condition of the acquisition, but within a year ‘every guarantee had been broken’. Evans concluded that the Murdochs would ‘promise anything to gain control’. As they are doing now to gain control over BskyB.

The Murdochs’ utter ruthlessness is also being demonstrated daily by the continuing revelations of criminal activity sanctioned in their organisation, and not least by the abrupt closure of the News Of The World with the destruction of around 200 jobs, in some vain attempt to rescue vestiges of public respect for the family.
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Bank Bonuses, Corruption, Economics, Free Market Capitalism, Political Decision

How To Spend It

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The bonuses earned by the bankers, hedgers and various fund managers arise as a result of making fast, smart decisions about price movements in currencies, commodity prices, food, energy and key resource shortages, mergers and acquisitions and the like. The quick returns from such deals ensure that mini speculative bubbles keep getting inflated, and the smarter fund managers make money when the bubbles burst as well as when they inflate. And the smartest and biggest fund managers are able to create bubbles and control their inflation and bursting, that is except the really big, conglomerate bubbles that gather once in a while. So speculative trading continues to grow and the problem of how to spend the resulting bonuses keeps on growing too. It really is quite a problem.

It’s not as though it’s a one off. And it comes on top of a basic salary which very much more than pays for living expenses at quite a generous level. You can do the Veblen thing and go for some conspicuous consumption – conspicuous waste is really not regarded as attractive today even if one was so inadequate as to find it intrinsically appealing. But conspicuous consumption is still seen as admirable. The Financial Times ‘How to Spend it’ Saturday supplement provides some ideas. For example, £81,000 for the Philip Treacy hat as worn by Princess Beatrice (??) at the royal wedding, except it looks so silly. Or £78,000 for the ex-Kate Middleton St Andrews dress. Or a wrist watch, amount spent depending mainly on the weight of gold and diamonds. But really such spends, even if one felt desperate to bolster one’s identity that way, could only provide relatively minor contributions to solving the problem.
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Bank Bonuses, Banking, Corruption, Economics, Financial Sector, free trade ideology, Political Decision, Public Sector

Why Don’t We Make the Bankers Pay?

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In the United States, Goldman Sachs, hugely profitable out of the financial crisis, still rules the roost. According to Senator Carl Levin, chair of the senate permanent sub-committee on investigations, in the report on Wall Street and the Financial Crisis, it’s a “sordid story” of a “financial snake-pit, rife with greed, conflicts of interest and wrongdoing.” Levin said he would be recommending Goldman executives be referred for criminal prosecution. But that’s barely news. Goldman have paid for their criminality before. In the UK this startling story is hidden away in a few short paragraphs on page 26 of today’s Guardian (15th April). It hardly qualifies as news. Because everybody knows.

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Accounting profession, Audit profession, Bank Bonuses, Company Law, Corruption

Going for Goldman

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The problem with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s long overdue pursuit of the potentially fraudulent practice in Goldman Sachs is that it is likely to take a long time to conclude, will cost an arm and a leg, and its outcome is far from certain. If and when the UK authorities follow SEC’s example, it would be likely to cost more, take longer, and be even less likely to produce convictions.

The problem is that such legal actions engage with the details of credit default swops (CDSs), collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) and the whole panoply of financial derivatives that have been deliberately invented to mislead and defraud. CDOs were invented so as to deliberately disguise the real extent of liabilities and so make a firm appear less risky and therefore capable of taking on more debt, which was done with the same deliberate intention to mislead and defraud. This is a minefield where the attribution of blame and intent is full of deliberately confusing and opaque detail.

It would be better to step back from the detailed machinations and simply take a view of the truth and fairness of a firm’s published accounts. It is not difficult to do with the benefit of hindsight. Where balance sheets have been seen not to reflect a true and fair account of a company’s position, the auditor who certified the balance sheet should be prosecuted. They are paid vast sums for their expertise and diligence in certifying company accounts. Auditors who are party to misleading accounts, are guilty of either incompetence or dishonesty. They should surely have to face the full force of the law and be struck off by their professional body. Similar treatment should be meted out to those who presented the misleading accounts. And those who gained through their deliberate misrepresentation and have taken large bonuses as a result, should be similarly treated, with their fraudulently earned bonuses being repaid.

This would be a major change in accepted custom and practice, but it is to be hoped the SEC’S action against Goldman Sachs is a first step in that direction.

Corruption, Public Sector

Fat Cat Corruption

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It was Peter Drucker who invented the 20 to 1 ratio, suggesting top executives wouldn’t be able to manage their firms effectively if they paid themselves more than 20 times their lowest paid employees, because of the ‘hatred’ and ‘contempt’ in which they would be held. Today, top executives in both public and private sectors pay themselves vastly more than 20 times, simply because they can, authorised by compliant remuneration committees of fellow fat cats.

The phenomenon results from what Bruno Frey referred to as the “crowding out” effects of extrinsic monetary rewards, the intrinsic motivations arising from the satisfaction of doing an interesting and hugely worthwhile job, being “crowded out” by the monetary rewards being pressed upon them or placed within their grasp. (The “socially useless” financial sector is excluded from these considerations – that’s another story!)

Executives in the real economy, and the public sector, may well have started out with intrinsic motivations to leave the world a better place for their brief presence in it. But these higher aims are “crowded out” in what becomes a mindless chase for more money.

But the person inside inevitably judges what others would think if they saw an act of theft, whether it’s picking up a £10 note on the street and pocketing it, or taking a multi-million pound salary. As Adam Smith indicated, it matters what others think; they would prefer others to think well, rather than ill, of them. Only when they know others think irredeemably ill, do they no longer care how their acts impact. Then there is nothing to lose, so they themselves become lost. They surround themselves with sycophants and hangers on, who insulate them from the hatred and contempt of their fellow humans. It’s a pity the sycophants include government ministers and politicans, for example George Osborne and Peter Mandelson notoriously meeting on a fat cat’s yacht a couple of years ago.

Accounting profession, Audit profession, Corruption

Auditing Repo 105 Deals

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John Lanchester, writing in last Saturday’s Guardian, explained the essence of the Repo 105 deals which Lehman Bros did to create the false impression in their accounts that the company was fit and well. And Lehman’s accountants, Ernst & Young, were happy, as Lanchester explained, to ‘sign off on the deal … It was all within the rules.’

But it wasn’t. Company accounts, in Britain and in America, are intended to reflect a true and fair picture of the company’s position – otherwise what is their point? It doesn’t matter that custom and practice has become so fraudulent in financial circles. The only reason why auditors are still required in Britain to certify the accounts as “true and fair” is to be sure that the various clever creative ways of accounting to disguise the true picture, which in themselves may be perfectly legal, are not used to deceive. At the end of the day the accounts must give a “true and fair” account. If audited accounts are not “true and fair”, then the accountants responsible, and the auditors who signed them off, should be struck off and locked up.

Accounting profession, Audit profession, Corruption, Economics, Shareholder Value

Financial Swindlers

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So it turns out the top brass at Lehman Brothers were deliberately lying about their indebtedness to the tune of $billions. Shades of Enron! So what’s new? Speculative markets are based on lies. In the old days financial institutions such as pension funds and insurance companies, served some social purposes. Today, hedge funds, sovereign funds and the like, serve no social purpose. They exist only to make money for their investors and themselves, both being in a position to take risks with ‘loadsamoney’. They have no moral compass beyond ‘making as much money as possible’ to quote the famous economic mountebank, Milton Friedman. So, of course, they are liars. The accounting profession are culpable, deliberately falsifying balance sheets so they appear less risky than they are. And firms of auditors are liars, declaring the accounts to be “true and fair” when they know perfectly well they are nothing of the kind. But very few of these parasitic liars end up behind bars.